Antiheroes of Eva: Natural Selection
by Imperial Tyrant
Summary: After his horrific ordeal at the hands of the Thirteenth Angel, Toji Suzuhara is granted a new lease on life, restoring what was lost…along with something that should have stayed buried…
1. Chapter 1

* * *

Antiheroes of Eva: Natural Selection

**Antiheroes of Eva: Natural Selection**

**Disclaimer:** Neon Genesis Evangelion is the property of Gainax. The Lizard is the property of Marvel Comics. I claim no ownership of either series and am not affiliated with them in any way. This story is not intended for profit; it is an entertaining diversion, both for the author and the readers.

* * *

Chapter One: The Origin of Species

* * *

An unfamiliar ceiling.

That was the first thing that Toji Suzuhara, fourth Child of NERV, had noticed upon awakening in the sterile, Spartan white room. He squinted his eyes against the harsh light, barely lucid, unable to hold onto a single stream of thought. A faint pressure around his mouth and lips, combined with his laboured breathing, made some part of his brain register that there was an oxygen mask on his face.

He felt tired, for reasons that escaped his scrambled mind—almost as though he'd been awake for a year, doing…something. Somewhere. Some_what_?

A fuzzy blob shifted slightly in the corner of his eye. He frowned, and let his head fall to the right so that he could have a better look at whatever it was.

A large mass of whitish-green, with a bit of tan and a small patch of brown; behind it was a solid block of grey. Slowly, the image became clearer and more distinct; the indecipherable mass became a hospital bed, while the grey object revealed itself to be a collection of gently humming machines that emitted frequent soft beeps. And lying in the bed, breath mask on his face and hooked up to a ventilator, was someone that Toji belatedly realized was—

"Shinji…?" he rasped, his harsh and dry voice grating like sandpaper across his parched throat. The very sensation filled the jock with nausea, and he struggled valiantly to swallow the bile threatening to shoot up his oesophagus. To save himself further pain, he voiced his thoughts within his head: _Why's Shinji sleeping beside me?_

There was some part of him that realised he should be concerned about his friend, but the best he could manage in his tired state was mild curiosity; presently, he was more interested in the fact that his eyelids seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and that keeping them open was causing his eyes to dry rapidly. All in all, he decided, it was a rather unpleasant feeling. So he let the offending folds of skin drop, sparing his poor eyes from further exposure to the stinging air.

In spite of his lethargy, the boy had managed to gather his wits about him—enough to begin wondering where he was, at any rate.

_Where am I? _The answer eluded him, although he was almost certain that he knew what it was. There was definitely something familiar about this room; the beds, the masks and the machines all struck a chord in his mind.

It was one of those…_things._ The place where sick people go to get better and the old people go to die, or something like that. Now what were those buildings called again…?

Oh yeah. Hospitals.

A flash of memory flitted through his brain like a ghost—a smiling girl, no older than nine, with hair the same colour as his own and an impish grin on her face. She was looking up at him from a bed much like this one, looking as cheerful as if Christmas had come early in spite of the casts on her right arm and both legs.

_Arm. Leg._

Through the haze that had settled over his mind—_must be some kind of painkillers_—Toji could feel an odd numbness in his left arm and left leg. His brows beetled in confusion. _Did I fall and break them, or something?_ He wondered, shifting slightly to put his weight on the other side.

Something throbbed twice—once at his shoulder, the second time just under his left knee. Unable to ignore his fatigue any longer, he drifted off into a fitful sleep.

And as his subconscious danced in the dreams of a sinister train at sunset, the throbbing continued at the spots where the surgeons had been forced to amputate in order to save his life. The veins on his upper thigh pulsed with every throb, as though beating to the tune of an enormous heart, coursing with power unrealized and untapped…

For the time being, at any rate.

* * *

Iruka Kyoryuu sighed in frustration as his glasses fogged up yet again. The office, as always, was just warm enough to make him uncomfortable, despite the fact that no one else seemed to find the heat as oppressive as he did. Lucky them—they didn't have to put up with his eternally sweaty hands and weak eyesight. Seizing the frames of his glasses with one hand, he reached up with the other to wipe the perspiration from his brow. He frowned in annoyance as the chilled surface of his prosthetic arm made contact with his forehead, making him shiver as though someone had pressed an ice cube to his face.

He'd never gotten used to the blasted weather. In the seven years since he'd returned to his home country from his studies abroad, his body had been slow to acclimate to the unfamiliar warmth that now pervaded Japan. At times like these, the thirty-six year old doctor wished for the relatively cool clime of the apartment complex in America which had been his home for more than a decade. His time in the United States had been like a dream come true for Iruka; the people were understanding to a point, gave him privacy when he so desired, and were polite enough not to stick their noses in his business—which was just the way he liked it.

Iruka was a rather antisocial man, having been bullied frequently in his youth for being fat, a video gamer, and a geek who didn't seem to have any real knowledge of the outside world. Because of this, he lacked many friends and preferred to keep to himself—which was ironic, considering the fact that he eventually decided to become a physician.

_Yet I couldn't pursue that dream here_, he thought with a resigned sigh as he let his synthetic limb drop down to a resting position. _There were too many people—everywhere, crowding in on me, crowding the buses beyond capacity, touching my shirt, my pants, my wrists; yammering inanely and in loud voices about the most painfully trivial pieces of noninformation…_

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to stymie both the growing downward spiral of his thoughts, and the rapid palpitations of his heart. Thinking like that wasn't good for him; that was what had caused his depression and subsequent breakdown when he was sixteen. It had been a pleasant summer day when his parents returned home from one of their frequent business trips to find that he had barricaded himself into his room, boarded up the windows and slit his wrists. Thankfully, they had summoned an ambulance before he had lost too much blood, and the paramedics were able to stabilize him.

It had been four hours later, when he had awakened from an anaesthetic-induced coma, that he had uttered a simple yet profound phrase: "Mom, dad…I'm not well."

His psychiatrist had told them that he was suffering from an extremely severe case of agoraphobia—the worst that she'd ever seen, apparently. Since his parents were somewhat wealthy, they could afford to send him somewhere with a population that wasn't as dense, in order to continue his studies.

So they'd said. But Iruka knew the truth: they just wanted him out of the way, like always. Why else would they leave the house for weeks on end and only stop by for the briefest of hours before flitting off to some other exotic location, while he was forced to stay behind and drown in a tempestuous sea of people? They hadn't wanted him—they were one of those new couples who were interested primarily in their sex life and their work. They had had no room or need in their hearts for a child—and an overweight, nearsighted, sickly boy with a post-nasal drip and a terrible immune system was even less welcome.

_Why the didn't just give me up for adoption is beyond me_, he thought with clenched teeth, a vein throbbing in his temple. His eyes widened in horror for half a second as his heart suddenly stopped beating; then he relaxed when he heard the familiar _ba-bump_ of his pulse.

The doctor reached into a drawer on his desk and retrieved a plastic bottle full of Carvedilol pills. Unscrewing the cap, he dropped three capsules into the palm of his flesh-and-blood right hand and tossed them into his mouth. Within seconds he had swallowed the medication, washing them down with a drink of bottled water.

_I really need to get off that subject_, he thought as he calmed down, allowing the pills to work their magic. Returning to his seat, he stared at the file on his desk.

SUZUHARA, TOJI jumped out at him from the page, dominating his focus with their large, bold letters. SUBJECT HAS SUSTAINED SEVERE PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA…

Ah yes, the Fourth Child. The Suzuhara boy had been involved in their NERV's recent battle with the Thirteenth Angel. Iruka hadn't been on hand to witness it, but from what he'd heard, the commander's son had gone ballistic in the aftermath—threatened to destroy half of headquarters with his Evangelion before being sedated, f he understood correctly.

With Doctor Akagi busy doing God only knows what elsewhere, the two pilots had been placed under Kyoryuu's care. The physician grumbled under his breath; he didn't enjoy taking orders from what he considered to be a jack-of-all-trades scientist—much less one that was younger than he by six years—but as she outranked him in the standing hierarchy of NERV, he had to do what she said.

Regardless, he had read the psychological profiles of both pilots. While he found that he could emphasize somewhat with Shinji—given certain similar aspects of their pasts—it was Suzuhara that truly piqued his interest. By all accounts the boy was the exact opposite of what Iruka had been at his age—brash, strong, healthy, athletic and arrogant to a fault. The report indicated that he had accepted his position as an Eva pilot in order to make up for an incident involving his sister during the Third Angel's attack on Tokyo-3.

Yet right from the start, his all too brief career had turned into a disaster: as soon as he'd synchronised with Unit Three, the parasitic organism which the MAGI supercomputers had christened Bardiel took possession of the Evangelion, resulting a short but furious engagement which had left Units Zero and Two incapacitated, and Unit Three reduced to a bloody pulp. In fact, the pilot's entry plug had been violently crushed by Unit One before Shinji Ikari could reassert control over the amethyst colossus.

Suzuhara's injuries had been severe: shrapnel from the plug had become embedded within the limbs of his left profile, mangling them beyond any hope of repair and allowing gangrene to set in. The fact that the metal had been laced with a 'foreign contaminant' (the MAGI refused to clarify what the substance actually was) had not helped either. In the end, they had been forced to amputate everything below his knee and shoulder.

Iruka grimaced darkly. He'd been in charge of the surgery, and for the briefest of instants it seemed as though the stumps of Toji's limbs had turned a sickening shade of indigo; but when he blinked, they were a normal colour. It must have been a trick of the light—after all, the mysterious substance had been isolated in the amputated parts of his limbs, so he doubted that whatever it was could have spread to the boy. More importantly, according to the boy's file he was completely healthy—no history of illness, no outbreaks of any major disease—nothing more severe than a bout of stomach flu at the age of seven.

This meant that he was a perfect test subject for the doctor's little…experiment.

Carefully, making sure that no one was lurking near his office, Iruka reached into a pocket of his lab coat and withdrew a tiny bottle full of a thick, green liquid.

Drinking within the Geofront was a minor offence punishable by court-martial and the docking of pay; this was his alibi if anyone discovered the beaker. To the untrained eye, it appeared to be nothing more than the doctor's private stash of absinthe. If anyone were to do a more detailed analysis of the liquid, however, they would quickly discover that it was never alcoholic, nor a beverage.

In fact, they would quickly learn that the emerald fluid contained the distilled genetic code of more than half a dozen different skinks, chameleons, monitor lizards and various other reptiles.

This volatile little genetic cocktail was Iruka Kyoryuu's _magnum opus_, his life's work, a project that had consumed his life for sixteen years—a serum so radical and potent that, if discovered, would land him in a maximum-security prison for twenty-five years on charges of international theft, treason, smuggling, the hunting of endangered species, and crimes against humanity.

Project Re-Genesis—a catalyst that would drastically enhance and accelerate the human body's recuperative process.

Originally the brainchild of his professor during his time spent in America, Re-Genesis had been their mutual dream for decades; Kyoryuu, because he had been fascinated with reptiles since he was but a child; the professor, because he sought a way to restore the arm that he had lost in Operation Desert Storm.

Yet things had become more personal for Iruka in the months immediately following Second Impact, he noted wryly as he flexed his mechanical hand. In the ensuing chaos, some thugs had broken into the labs in search of something valuable to sell. All they had found was a foreigner and a vial of some useless green liquid, so they decided to vent their frustrations on him.

He'd fought them off as well as he could, given the situation, but there were five of them—and one of them had been carrying a machete…

Fortunately, his professor had known a man called Mendel Stromm, a man who specialized in creating cybernetic limbs and replacement organs. Two million dollars and a week later, Iruka had woken up on a lab table in an unsanitary warehouse—with that _thing_ in the place of his left arm. To make matters worse, they had learned halfway through the surgery that his back wouldn't be able to take the strain of supporting this much-heavier prosthesis unaided; as a result, both his shoulder blades and a large part of his spine had been reinforced with steel plating and advanced servomotors that clicked and whirred with every movement. His colleagues told him that the noise was somewhat unsettling; he barely even noticed it anymore.

Iruka had thrown himself into the work on Project Re-Genesis, sparing just enough of his energy and attention to graduate from college and university with honours. In his mind, the cybernetic limb that clung to his shoulder like an unsightly barnacle made him even more of a loathsome creature—and that serum was the solution.

Alas, when the research had amounted to nothing after eight years, Professor Connors had given up hope of ever completing the formula and had the project discontinued. Iruka had not found it so easy to consign everything that he done over all that time to a trash can, however. He had confronted the professor after a night of heavy drinking. Harsh words were spoken. An argument began, which eventually devolved into an all-out brawl. Iruka somehow emerged victorious, fleeing with a vial full of the serum and leaving his friendship with the professor—the only real friend he'd ever had—in tatters.

Kyoryuu had eventually returned to Japan, were he began to hold practice—all the while continuing to experiment with Project Re-Genesis. After less than a year, he decided that the only place with the facilities necessary for his continued research would have to be NERV Headquarters in Tokyo-3.

He got himself hired by the U.N.-sanctioned organization in short order, serving as an assistant and medical advisor to Doctor Akagi before her growing duties elsewhere resulted in him being placed in charge of the on-site hospital.

Two years ago he had finally made a breakthrough—after so many years, he had at last cracked the formula's code and made Re-Genesis a viable solution. Immediately he began testing it on various specimens: initially he'd used guinea pigs and laboratory rats which he had mutilated himself, before moving up to stray dogs and cats. All subjects had returned as positive: broken bones knitted within seconds; eyes that had cataracts became perfectly healthy and functional; severed limbs regrew in a visceral and graphic fashion in less than a quarter-hour.

He was skittish about testing Project Re-Genesis on humans, however. He couldn't use it on himself without arousing suspicion for obvious reasons, and even if he started using vagrants as test subjects, eventually the rapidly-expanding number of missing homeless people and street punks would attract the eye of Section-2.

But Suzuhara was in the perfect position: his regeneration would be looked on favourably by NERV, as they could always use an extra pilot; and even if the serum backfired for whatever reason, he'd be no worse off than he already was. Really, what did either of them have to lose?

Iruka slid open one of the drawers on his desk and pulled out a hypodermic syringe with a long needle. _If this works, you'll thank me boy; if not, you won't even know the difference._ Filling the needle to the brim with the green liquid, he rose from his chair and strode out into the hallways of NERV.

It was time to pay the Fourth Child a visit.

_

* * *

_

Unit Three held its purple-hued predecessor by the throat, its horrendously long arms pinning the horned giant to the mountainside. The black colossus's jaws hung open in a feral grin, the vile parasite controlling it savouring every moment of the impending kill as its mammoth hands squeezed down on the struggling cyborg's pharynx. The sensations flooded over the possessed Evangelion's captive pilot, subsuming his will beneath a tsunami of savage bloodlust and killer instinct. Toji barely even registered the excruciating pain in his forearms, where the bones had torqued and split into fine greenstick fractures when Bardiel had extended his arms. He didn't register the fact that he was strangling one of his best friends to death; he couldn't even tell who he was or what he was doing.

_Nor, really, did he care. All that mattered to him was crushing the offensive amethyst titan that had caused him such pain in the past. His suppressed anger towards Unit One for injuring his sister in its battle with the Third Angel had been easily discovered by the Thirteenth; now it was feeding that anger, stoking the flames with the fatty tinder of rage and murderous intent until his mind was little more than an inferno of pure and utter loathing. His Evangelion was the perfect host for such an insidious parasite—and now Toji's emotions had made him into the perfect puppet._

_They could both feel it—feel the life slipping out of Unit One, and with it its pilot. Soon it would be over; with the EVA destroyed, and units Two and Zero incapacitated, there was nothing which could stop Bardiel from reuniting with the All-Father at last and bringing his glorious vision to fruition._

_Then their weakly-struggling victim's eyes turned a uniform shade of bloody crimson. _

_Unit One's lax grip on Bardiel's arms suddenly tightened to a vicelike hold on its neck, and with a mighty push the Lillim's vessel surged to its feet._

_The collective consciousness that made up the Thirteenth Angel's mind suddenly had a sudden, unexpected and entirely distressing bad feeling about this situation. Their positions had now been completely reversed: the predator was now being preyed upon—the hunter had become the hunted!_

_The two Evangelions snarled as they pushed and squeezed, each trying to throttle the other before their opponent could do the same. At first it seemed that they were evenly matched—two titanic monsters, one driven by Angelic instinct, the other by a force which Bardiel found both familiar and terrifying._

_Then Unit One jerked its hands violently to one side, and the Thirteenth spawn of Adam rapidly felt an icy numbness flood through its possessed body as its cervical vertebrae snapped in half like a dry twig. Its host's arms, once mighty limbs that had brought low the very being which was now killing it, went limp and slid from Unit One's neck like water off a smooth stone. Unit Three dangled from the Test Type's grip, a broken rag doll, its pilot having fallen into a coma once the cyborg's neck was broken._

_Yet Unit One did not stop there. Cracking open its dental armour in a savage roar, it swung the beaten corpse of its enemy over its shoulder, bringing it down on the ground with meteoric force. _

_Bardiel knew what had happened to the other Angels who had faced this abomination. It knew that its end was nigh, that in a few scant seconds its foe would deliver a killing blow. Yet it knew that there was still a way to escape. Withdrawing its presence from the dying and useless body, it transferred all of its mass to the plug containing the Fourth Child._

_Unit One drew back its fist and swung it forward, punching the possessed Evangelion's face with such force that its head literally exploded. A tidal wave of gore and grey matter washed over the Lillim city's street, one of Unit Three's eyes flying off quite a distance before landing near the entrance to one of their emergency shelters, many miles away. Far from sated, the purple colossus dug its fingers beneath a gap in the dead Evangelion's breastplate and pulled, ripping the armour plating from its torso before proceeding to yank out its entrails. Out they came—intestines, stomach, liver, spleen, kidneys, lungs, heart…even the S2 organ which had grown to replace the Evangelion's power core. Only then, when the corpse's chest had been emptied of all organs, did the vile monster begin to deface the rest of the body. It started by tearing Unit Three's left arm right out of its socket, a geyser of blood spurting forth to mar the side of a skyscraper as it casually tossed the limb aside. It landed in the Chikuma river, already stained red from the setting sun and quickly turning a sickening shade of scarlet._

_On and on did it continue to exhume the corpse, until after the longest five minutes of both pilots' lives, nothing remained of the onyx giant but a bloody, limbless husk, stripped of all life and dignity by the amethyst nightmare which towered over it even now, the victim's film-coated entry plug clutched in its trembling hand. Bardiel tensed, knowing that the moment of doom was at hand, readying itself to make its final gambit._

_With a scream that seemed more human than animal, Unit One clenched its fist. The entry plug crumpled, the metal forced inward by the pressure. The Thirteenth Angel flowed like a viscous liquid over the tearing surface of the plug, passing through the LCL and toward the unconscious but severely injured pilot._

_It had latched onto the Fourth Child's left side when a piece of shrapnel stabbed into his arm just above the elbow. The Angel loosed an incredibly high-pitched scream that carried throughout the rapidly-dispersing link-connect liquid. Had Toji still been conscious, the ungodly sound would not only have driven him irrevocably insane but also would have robbed him of his hearing. The horrendous noise was repeated a second later, when another entry plug fragment perforated the Angel at the midway point of his left thigh. Abruptly the sound halted, coinciding with a technician's report that "Eva Unit Three—I mean…the target has gone completely silent, sir." the filmy residue that made up the now-dead Angel began to decompose rapidly, sloughing away like the surf at a beach._

_Yet enough remained to seep into the boy's grievous wounds, spreading through the opened arteries and veins, an insidious yet harmless invader that posed a quandary to all scans. No life signs to indicate the presence of blood pattern blue; no cause for his overtaxed immune system to fight off the strange invader; no reason to consider him contaminated. By the time the medics had arrived, there was absolutely nothing left to indicate that the Thirteenth Angel had made any form of contact with Toji Suzuhara whatsoever. By the time they had rushed him to NERV's hospital in the Geofront, the material in his bloodstream had become nigh indistinguishable from the life-giving humours._

So it was that when Iruka Kyoryuu entered the pilots' room, he had no reason to suspect that his actions would soon have consequences far more drastic than anything he could have imagined. Striding across the sterile chamber to the Fourth Child's bed, he cast a critical eye over Suzuhara. It was clear that he'd never be able to pilot an Evangelion again—much less accomplish whatever athletic dreams the jock probably had. With a sigh of resignation, he pulled up the boy's sleeve to expose the pit of his inner elbow.

_Well, here goes nothing, _he thought as he jammed the syringe into Toji's radial recurrent artery. It was the largest artery in that portion of the boy's body; the serum would be dispersed throughout his body within minutes. Re-Genesis would take effect immediately thereafter.

Kyoryuu stuffed the empty hypodermic into a hip pocket, then turned on his heel and walked out the door. He gave a curt nod to the two female pilots—Ayanami and Soryu, if he recalled correctly; he was too busy to bother remembering their first names—as he walked past, flat-out ignoring the inquisitive stares that they sent his way.

The girls continued to stare after the portly doctor until he rounded the corner and disappeared from view. Then they slowly turned and gave each other confused looks. Not only had that man been the most unhealthy-looking physician they'd ever seen, he hadn't even bothered to let them know how their fellow pilots were doing!

Asuka Langley Soryu huffed in irritation. _Who the hell does that verdammt quack think he is anyway? _She sneered in her mind. _What kind of doctor doesn't tell the patient's condition to their coworkers?! Especially to _me, _the Great Asuka Langley, pilot of Unit Two?!_

**The "Great" Asuka Langley?** A sinister voice echoed mockingly within her skull. **I don't seem to recall you preening and strutting like this during the last battle. Or have you already forgotten how quickly you were beaten? How soundly your opponent incapacitated you and left your Evangelion to rot in the hills of Matsushiro?**

The Second Child's eyes narrowed. _For a second there, I honestly forgot that you were rattling around inside my head, Zarathos. What a pity._

**Yes, it certainly is,** the demon replied, its telepathic voice dripping with scorn. **At least then I wouldn't have to put up with such an uncooperative, cocksure Rider! Your stupid pride has already cost you the use of any potential allies. How long will it be before you also lose to the Angels?!**

_Would you shut up for a minute, damn it?! I don't need your lip right now!_

**Fine,** the demon spat. **But I warn you—that doctor will pose a problem in the future. He has not killed anyone, but the stench of evil hangs over him.** And with that, the fiend withdrew into the recesses of Asuka's mind.

* * *

The Re-Genesis formula coursed through Toji's veins, diffusing itself throughout his body. Under normal circumstances, the reptilian molecules would bond with his platelets, white blood cells and bone marrow, copying and replicating his genetic blueprints in order to kick his recuperative faculties into overdrive.

These circumstances, however, were clearly far from normal.

The reptilian DNA made contact with what remained of the Thirteenth Angel. Parasitic and absorptive in nature, Bardiel's genetic material assimilated Re-Genesis into itself, forming a hybrid compound of two wildly different genetic materials. Once this occurred, the new substance proceeded to finish what it had originally started—albeit on a much faster scale.

The unconscious boy muttered softly and began to toss and turn as it went to work. His agitated movements intensified as his various injuries began to heal at an unbelievable rate. Wounds sealed, scabbed over, and became indistinguishable from healthy flesh; broken bones knitted themselves back together until they seemed like new; and a powerful, throbbing ache began to suffuse his left side.

Suddenly Toji snapped awake, his body jerking violently as he sat up. His shoulder was on _FIRE!_, and it was all he could do to hold back a bloodcurdling and decidedly unmanly scream. His eyes, drawn to the source of the sudden agony, widened in horror as the stump of his arm burst open like an overripe fruit, a shaft of bone shooting out from it until it was as long as his arm. An overpowering sense of nausea took hold as the ivory spear split into five points, each of which cracked multiple times to form phalanges and metacarpals. The same thing happened halfway down the length of bone, splitting it in the middle to create an elbow. His right hand flew up to his mouth as a layer of pink and purple fibres oozed over the newly-formed humerus, radius and hand. The taught sinew rapidly thickened and expanded into muscle tissue, over which flowed a coating of hairless pink skin.

For a moment the pain subsided, and all Toji could do was gaze upon the naked, rosy arm with a mixture of confusion, awe and revulsion.

Then he screamed as the pain returned with the force of a sledgehammer as his leg underwent the exact same process. Mercifully, the blanket still covered everything below his waist, sparing his mind from having to see such an awful sight once again.

But the pain…god almighty, _the pain!!_ There existed no words in any of Man's many languages to adequately describe it!

Shinji leapt from his bed, awoken from a most peculiar dream by the sound of his macho friend wailing like a newborn baby. He turned to look in his direction, fear and guilt warring in his heart: fear at what he'd see writhing in Toji's bed, guilt for having caused him such pain in the first place. It was no secret that the Third Child blamed himself for the loss of Toji's limbs, after all.

So he was understandably shocked to see Toji flailing _both_ of his arms about while something happened to his legs. With a sickening _sprooot_, the Fourth Child kicked the sheets clean off with his left foot.

Abruptly Toji's limbs went slack, and he fell back onto his bed, his eyes wide open. Shinji ran over, screaming his friend's name as he shook the taller boy in an attempt to snap him out of whatever stupor he was in. had he not been so occupied, he would have seen Toji's eyes undergo a startling transformation: for the briefest of instants, his sclera went from white to completely red, and his pupils narrowed and elongated until they were vertical, reptilian slits…

* * *

**Author's Note: **yes, I admit it; I have a tendency to jump on bandwagons. Despite the name, however, this story will have more in common with Orionpax's _Superwomen of Eva_ series than the _Antiheroes _story(ies) created by Biohazard 101; it will reference the characters and events of some of those stories, and I may even involve a superwoman or two directly. Whether or not that happens is entirely up to the authors: Orionpax, Mike313, Archdruid-Sephiroth; if you have any objections to my using your characters in this story, then you need only say so in the review section. Similarly, if my use of the characters is okay, post a review indicating as such.

Some of you may be wondering how I'm going to work this into the other stories, if I get their permission. In response, I would have to point you in the direction of _treacherous Web_: although it's part of Orionpax's overall collection, it clearly doesn't mesh with the rest of them--if for no other reason than that Ritsuko kills off Gendo Ikari _within the first three chapters._ I'll find a way to do it--you can count on that.

Finally, you've no duobt noticed that a sizeable portion of this chapter was dedicated to the background of an original character. I'll ask you all to bear with me on this, as it is necessary for the overall story arc. Iruka Kyoryuu is not finished with Toji yet--not by a long shot.

And now I will leave you, dear readers, with two things: first, a request that you read and review; and second, a challenge: who can tell me, in a single, five-line paragraph, what they think will happen to that OC? Will he be an ally, an adversary, or a completely neutral character? Shall he become a pre-existing Marvel character, or, like Hikari Horaki in _Spirit, _will he become someone completely new? You'll get five bonus points if I like your hypothesis, thirty if you somehow manage to get it perfectly, and you will be docked ten points if it is written in l337, chatspeak or some other form of nonsensical claptrap. The top five (the remaining criteria I am keeping to myself) will receive salutations when the next chapter comes out. Adieu!


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** first, and foremost, let me apologize for the obscenely long delay. Back in September, my brother decided that it was time to upgrade the computer without asking for anyone's input. He swapped it out for a new one--neglecting to inform me that he would be doing so--and then promptly threw it out. Needless to say, this threw a massive monkey wrench into _everything_, as that's where I stored all my assignments, documents, essays, etc. As a result, I had to spend the better part of a month trying to redo everything, and by the end of it I was stuck playing catch-up for pretty much the rest of the semester. Rest assured, I won't be making that mistake again--I'll keep hardcopies of everything, whenever possible.

Second, I would like to offer my humble (and long-overdue) apologies to Orionpax09. At the time, It had seemed fitting for the two devils to eventually be at each other's throats, and I wasn't thinking. Should you wish, you may completely disregard the story; the decision is yours.

Thirdly, the contest is now over. To those of you who participated, you all had excellent ideas, many of which had me scratching my head and wondering, "now why didn't I think of that?" Alas, none of you managed to get the perfect reponse, but that's good--it'll keep you guessing. And Animefan29, the questions referred solely to the OC, though I understand how you made that mistake.

Finally, merry belated Christmas, everyone! I hope you all had a good time, because I sure didn't.

**Disclaimer: **Neon Genesis Evangelion is the property of Gainax. The Lizard is the property of Marvel Comics. I claim no ownership of either series and am not affiliated with them in any way. This story is not intended for profit; it is an entertaining diversion, both for the author and the readers.

* * *

_**The future; date unknown**_

_The tyrant stood atop the parapets of his fortress, looking down on the ruins of civilization. Dry winds, heavy with tons of ash, whipped his cape as he turned his helmeted head, his eyes blazing like the fires that still ravaged much of the globe. The city in which he had built his keep was utterly devoid of life, as it had been for the last decade; the tortured hulks of skyscrapers hung in supplication to his will, a grim reminder to the rest of the world__¾__resistance would not be tolerated._

_One sound stood out amidst the howling winds, drawing his attention to the east--__a keening whine, growing louder and higher-pitched with every millisecond. Seconds later he spotted the quintet of tiny specks on the blood-spattered horizon. The view magnified ten times, revealing that the approaching objects to be intercontinental ballistic missiles--packed to the brim with N__2__ mines, no doubt, or perhaps even a few nuclear warheads._

_Had the tyrant remembered what compassion felt like, he might have been able to generate a spark of admiration for those insects across the sea: despite being defeated again and again, despite their troops being slaughtered by the thousands and millions, they refused to give up without a fight. Tenacious, to the last; like cockroaches._

_But he was no longer capable of emotion._

_His domain possessed a vast automated security system, although it lacked anything capable of countering aerial attacks. This did not matter; he was more than enough to overcome any such threats. The tyrant stretched out his arm, a dull gray in the nuclear winter, and reached for the ICBMs as if to grasp them from such a great distance. The missiles wavered in his invisible grip, unable to escape from a multitude of telekinetic and electromagnetic forces. He closed his gauntleted fist, and the night sky briefly turned to day as all five of the missiles exploded under the pressure of his AT-Field._

_The tyrant turned from the sight and strode back into his scrap fortress; he had far more important things to attend to than wiping out the rest of those insignificant creatures. The device was nearing completion, and he could not trust the final stages of its construction to his primitive mechanical thralls. For a moment, he felt what might have been a twinge of satisfaction at the imminent completion of his plan…but then it was gone. Even walking past the mummified corpses of his enemies, hanging from the walls like gruesome works of art, did nothing to incite his glee as it once did. In fact, the preservation of their remains--__forever frozen in a state of agony, like the death throes of a patient with Huntington's--__was a frivolous waste of energy and resources; soon, he would have to discontinue it altogether if the device was to be completed without difficulty._

_The tyrant might have been bothered by this, had he still possessed a heart. But his veins transported raw energy rather than blood, and his heart beat with the fires of Super Solenoid energy. Emotions were for those born of Lilith, not the sole remaining heir to Adam's legacy. He descended into the bowels of his laboratory and looked upon his towering creation with cool detachment._

_It was time to go to work._

* * *

**Chapter 2: The Coming of the Beast**

**2015 A.D.; Tokyo-3**

"Ow!" Toji winced, straining against the leather straps in protest as the doctor stabbed a hypo into the soft skin of his left elbow. His new arm, still pink and covered in a layer of fine, colourless hair, was extremely sensitive, and even the slightest hint of pain brought his mind back to that mind-boggling instant when it had erupted from his stump like a popping zit.

Kyoryuu shot the boy an odd look, and Toji realized with embarrassment that he had said that last bit out loud. "That's hardly the simile I'd have used to describe this incident," the scruffy-looking man said, his mechanical hand pinning Toji's arm to the cot. "Oh well. To each his own, I suppose. Now stop struggling for a minute--I need to take more samples." He turned to a nearby nurse and motioned for her to give him a scalpel.

This didn't sit well at all with the Fourth Child, who began to thrash violently. These people must be nuts--he'd managed to get his arm back through a freak accident, and now they wanted to carve it up like a side of beef? Not in this lifetime! "Screw you, man! Do you have any idea what I just went through?! It felt like my arm and my leg were on _fire!_ an' watchin' em grow back wasn't exactly pleasant!"

"I know," the doctor said in his wet and raspy Kyoto-ben, struggling to suppress a sigh. The boy had been in a state of agitation ever since regaining consciousness, and he had been markedly uncooperative for the last hour of tests. Had Iruka been in his shoes, he probably would have felt the same--confused by this unusual turn of events, scared that he might lose his limbs again or worse…but Kyoryuu was not a man particularly given to sentimentality or genuinely sympathetic gestures. "Relax, Suzuhara; I'm just going to make a small cut in your arm, so that I can reach the muscle tissue. Blood samples can only tell us so much, after all, and we need to be sure that this…improbability isn't the result of neural contamination." He leaned in close to the boy's face, trying to get the point across. "You wouldn't want us to have to put you down, now would you?"

Toji fought the instinct to recoil; the doc's scraggly beard looked like it hadn't been shaved in weeks, and his greasy black hair was even worse. His brown eyes, almost hidden beneath thick glasses and a pair of bushes that even a caveman wouldn't mistake for eyebrows, regarded him with a cold and sallow intelligence. Just by looking at him, it was easy for Toji to see that this guy wasn't in this business solely out of the goodness of his heart; maybe he got some sort of sick pleasure from tormenting his patients. It certainly seemed that way, if the pain shooting through his bicep was any indication--that high-class sonuvabitch hadn't even bothered to give him an anaesthetic before stabbing him, and the only thing preventing Toji from flailing around like a violent drunkard was the iron grip of the doc's left arm.

Toji shuddered. If he hadn't been unconscious while ripped apart by Unit One, the clicks and whirs that it made would no doubt have replaced that beating in his nightmares. The design of the limb was damn unusual, too: with a hand that ended in bladelike talons and a jutting shoulder, it looked like it might have been some uninformed cosplayer's take on an Evangelion's arm, albeit more bestial.

The doctor noticed his interest. _he's probably afraid he'll end up like me,_ Kyoryuu thought absently as he poked around inside the wound, nodding in satisfaction when he managed to cut off a piece. He quickly flicked the blade to dislodge the piece of musculature, his synthetic limb an implacable mountain against the boy's agonized screams and thrashes, noting that the wound closed up within three seconds, leaving a faint scar. He placed the meat within a nearby tray and handed the scalpel off to the nurse, then cast a critical eye over the boy. Rapid healing, regeneration of limbs, and--if the boy's inability to succumb to pain was any indication--a healthy resistance to shock and fatigue…all were symptoms of a successful application of Re-Genesis. He should have felt elated; the first human test subject was a success!

However, there was something…off about the boy's symptoms. Blood and tissue samples indicated that the reptilian DNA had dispersed throughout Suzuhara's body at a much faster rate than originally predicted; worse, it appeared to have spread beyond his immune system and regenerative faculties. A single glance at the first sample had shown Iruka that approximately _ninety-seven percent_ of the boy's cells had been infused with Re-Genesis; none of the subsequent samples had done anything to dispel this conclusion. Thankfully the majority of the cells were inert--only those in the heart and bone marrow were showing signs of increased activity. He would have to doctor the results before Akagi managed to get her claws into them…make it seem like something else was responsible.

Iruka abhorred situations where he had no control, as they made him feel powerless and weak. If his suspicions were incorrect, and the so-called 'foreign contaminant' was not responsible for this unusual proliferation, it would mean that something in his formula was flawed. his face contorted into a mask of anger at that thought. He would not allow _anything_ to threaten whatever chances he had of regaining his arm; he would find some pretext, and give the boy a far more thorough examination--even vivisection, if such was required.

So intent was he on this train of thought, and so thoroughly was the boy caught in the throes of his pain, that neither of them noticed when the hunk of muscle in the tray twitched slightly, as if caught in the grip of some spasm…

* * *

"So how long was I out for?" Toji asked, glad to finally be out of that freaky cyborg's clutches. He sat on his bed, clad in a smock similar to the one he had previously worn (the previous one had been too drenched with sweat, blood and a number of other fluids to ever be considered 'sanitary' again), and a thick gauze covered the scar on his left bicep. Thankfully, he'd been given a chance to shower, so at least he didn't look or smell like the living dead.

None of that really mattered to Hikari Horaki; she only cared that he was alive, and in one piece. "You had been unconscious for about a day when it happened," the class rep replied, the relief in her voice almost tangible. Shinji woke up when you screamed, and they discharged him a day after you lapsed into your fugue. You woke up shortly afterwards, if I understand correctly." She paused, a note of hesitation evident in her expression. "Did you really…?"

"Yeah," Toji said in response to the unfinished question. "And it sure as hell wasn't pleasant, I can tell you that." He failed to repress a shudder as the visceral memory of his arm's regrowth flashed unbidden before his eyes. "But enough about that. Have you heard anything about my sister?"

"She's perfectly fine," Hikari assured him, relieved that he had decided to change the subject. "The doctors told me that her injuries are healing perfectly; within a month, she should be well enough to go home."

"That's good. What happened to Shinji?"

"I don't know, but Asuka and Ayanami think he might be in trouble…"

* * *

The door slid open with a clang, allowing the harsh light of halogen lamps to flood the room through a chain grate. The cell's only occupant did not care, fixed as he was on burning a hole in the far wall with his eyes. Such was his anger, and such was the intensity of his stare, that given sufficient time he might have succeeded. Alas, that was not to be, if the nameless shadow standing at the corner of his vision was any indication.

"Shinji Ikari," the faceless Section 2 agent fairly drawled. "The commander wants to see ya."

The Third Child's eyes narrowed considerably. Oh, yes; that wall was as good as perforated.

Three sets of cuffs were slapped onto his wrists, none too gently. Then he was roughly yanked from his cell and dragged across the mammoth sprawl that was headquarters. For once, Shinji was glad that the walk took so long to reach the commander's office¾it gave him time for his anger to fester and boil, like a pot left over the fire for far too long. By the time they reached his father's office, the boy's anger had percolated to the fore, tingeing his vision with a red lens of hate. He stood in the cavernous room, his gaze boring into the seated, steeple-fingered bastard that was Gendo Ikari.

The commander wasted no time in bringing up the boy's list of transgressions. "Disobeying orders. Using an Eva for personal vendetta. Childish intimidation. These are _all_ criminal offences." Commander Ikari peered out at his son over his fingers, his expression unreadable behind the lens flare of his glasses. He paused to allow the words to sink in, then continued. "Do you have _anything_ to say?" he asked, his tone indicating that the question was both mocking and rhetorical.

Shinji fought back the urge to spit on the floor. _How could I have _ever_ wanted this man's respect?_ he thought, his vitriolic train of thought accompanied by the past eleven years of complete and utter neglect he'd been forced to endure. And for what? To gain the fleeting praise of a heartless man who cared nothing for the people under his command, who would spend them all like currency in an attempt to defeat the Angels?

Gendo sickened him. Prior to the Thirteenth Angel, Shinji had been able to overlook some of his father's faults, and had even basked in his fleeting praise after saving them all from the previous Angel. But what he had done to Toji was inexcusable…and he had used his own son's hands to do it! The fact that his friend had miraculously regenerated his severed limbs was inconsequential.

"Yes," Shinji replied after a moment, his voice utterly devoid of any emotion whatsoever. "I don't want to pilot an Eva anymore…and I don't want to stay here, either."

"Well, then, you may leave," the commander hissed, knowing that his son was too cowardly to rise up to the challenge.

"Yes. I'll go back to my old teacher," said coward concluded with a note of finality, turning sharply on his heel and heading for the door.

"So, you're running away again," his father called out, as if attempting to goad him into a confrontation. "You disappoint me. I assume that we'll never meet again."

Shinji paid him little heed. There was a time when such words would have flayed him to the bone, left him wallowing in self-pity for days if not weeks. But his father's words no longer bore power; they had no hold over him anymore. "Yes, that's my intent."

And with those words he left, slamming the door with considerable force.

Gendo sighed in annoyance, wondering what could have possibly transpired that would allow his son to grow a spinal cord. He was angry and defiant, and far more so than the scenario required him to be; sooner or later he probably _would_ unleash Unit One on NERV headquarters.

It must have been because of the anomalies. These 'Superwomen," as the press and internet forums had labelled them, had been nothing but trouble since they first appeared: fighting crime, saving lives, overcoming the Angels when the Evangelions had failed, and assisting the Children whenever they could. And now there were at least a half-dozen of them running around his city! A greater monkey wrench could not have been found that would have screwed up the scenario to a greater extent than they.

The commander brought his palm up to his temple, rubbing his creased brow in exhaustion. It almost made him nostalgic for the days when Spirit was the only thorn in his side…

That brought a smile to his lips. _Spirit_. If nothing else, her failure to remove the Thirteenth Angel from Unit Three during the last battle would no doubt serve as a blow to her self-confidence. To have the boy she apparently cared for, savagely beaten and crippled while she was within figurative arm's reach, would be a wound to her morale that she would probably never overcome. As far as she probably knew, the Fourth Child was in critical condition and not expected to survive.

This tangentially brought him back to his original concern: the head physician's report on the Pilot's miraculous convalescence. Its author--a man whose name the commander could not be bothered to remember, despite his having arguably the seventh highest payroll in the Tokyo Branch--had clearly doctored the results. Did the man honestly expect his employer to read that the Fourth Child's physiology was that of a normal adolescent, despite the fact that he had _recently regrown two blasted arms_, without a significant amount of neural contamination?

What kind of idiot did this man take him for?

Section 2 would be keeping an eye on _both_ of them--especially the doctor, but _especially_ the boy! He had enough problems on his hands, what with his rebellious son and the accursed metahumans; the last thing he needed was to allow a potential threat to spring up from under his nose and throttle him at the most inopportune moment. This was one threat that he was going to nick in the bud immediately.

Gendo smirked, barely suppressing the sudden and inexplicable desire to throw back his head and cackle like some insane fool. No matter what fate chose to throw at him¾be it dissenting pilots, super-powered women, or the Committee's treacherous schemes--he would persevere. He would complete his scenario, and then they could all rot in hell!

* * *

The Fourth Child's eyes snapped open, and he sat up immediately, all vestiges of his nap gone in an instant. He was alone; Hikari had left a few hours before, promising to let his sister know that he was alright on her way out. but something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones; he could smell it in the air. _Some_thing was nearby, something so wrong, so unnatural, that every part of his very being recoiled from it in fear and disgust. Nausea overcame him, and he leapt from his bed to the bedpan, vomiting up his last meal. he brought his hand up to steady himself, stop the world from spinning…

His hand was translucent.

He could see the vein and the bones, see the blood pumping through them, see the heat radiating from it in shades of red, green and yellow. Toji, stunned, raised his other hand and saw that it, too, was similarly exposing its contents.

"What…the…hell…?" he whispered in confusion, wincing as a sudden pain shot through his head. Whatever that thing was, it was getting closer. He had no idea how he knew this, it just seemed readily apparent…and that scared him. It got closer every second, and his fear rose in direct proportion to the amount of time that went by.

_It is coming_, he thought, the panicking voice in his head not his own. _It will kill me…I must escape!_

Toji turned to the walls of his room, scrabbling at them frantically with fingers that suddenly seemed very stiff and very heavy. _Gotta be a way out, has to be_. His fear gave way to frustration, and he began to knock the beeping, utterly redundant machines aside. _Stupid things. What good are now, anyway?!?!_ With no other option, he brought his mouth to a seam in the wall and began to gnaw at it. It was close…so very close…can't run, gotta fight…gotta fight!

"What the hell is that noise, Stooge?" the voice of a certain arrogant little witch demanded, muffled by the door.

Toji froze, the hackles on the back of his neck standing on end. He could see a red-and-green blob that was unmistakably Asuka Langley Soryu, standing in front of his door with her hands on her hips. And there was something else…a presence that hung over her like a black cloud, one that was somehow familiar and fearsome. _This _was the source of his terror, and now that it was hear, he had no choice but to fight. But he was determined to avoid it, if possible.

"Leave me alone, Devil," the boy said on suddenly raspy breath, noticing that he was hyperventilating. He paused to scratch an itch on his back, snarling when the inflammation began to spread faster than his hand could catch it. "I really don't want to see you right now!"

"And you think _I_ do?" she snapped back, her blob reddening with anger. "I'm only here because Hikari wanted me to check up on you, you ungrateful little--"

"I said leave me alone!" Toji bellowed. He brought his fist down on the wall in frustration, leaving a noticable dent in the sterile surface. "Now go away! Tell her I'm fine and leave me be!"

Asuka paused, shocked at his inexplicable anger. True, they didn't get along--never had--but for him to explode like this was damned unusual. She reached for the handle with some concern and some anger, only to stop when a howl of agony split the air.

Toji had fallen to the floor, clutching his left arm. The limb felt as though it was being dunked in lava; every single nerve in the arm was suddenly on _fire!_ all three of his other limbs--scratch that, his whole body--were wracked with similar sensations. The pain continued to build, the itch having now spread everywhere, and the sensory assault made him scream in agony. his hair began to fall out in clumps.

Then all four of his limbs split open as the bones extended to twice their length, muscle and scaly flesh rapidly flowing across the exposed bone. He winced as his hospital gown ripped, torn to shreds by the spear of vertebrae that erupted from the seat of his pants. Then he screamed a gain as his skull began to compress, and darkness took him.

"Are you--" was all that Asuka had time to say before the door _exploded _in her face, and something green and hissing the size of a truck burst out of the room. She leapt back at the last instant, taking the creature's charge in the side instead of head-on. Rather than being smashed into the wall behind her, she merely got knocked off her feet as a consequence.

The creature loomed over her, its pebbly lips peeled back to expose a vast number of knife-sized teeth and a long, forked tongue. Despite the fact that it was hunched over, the beast stood nearly eight feet tall, and the powerful, muscular tail flicking behind it extended for at least twenty. Its enormous feet ended in saurian talons, spikes jutted from its elbows, and its twelve-inch fingers each bore a claw the size of a banana. Its ribs and vertebrae were painfully pronounced, as if they were trying to erupt from the constraining flesh. The beast's horrible eyes, red, slitted and catlike, leered at her with a cold fury. "_**Fiend,**_" it hissed in a cruel parody of a human's voice, green flecks of saliva dripping from its tongue as it spoke. "_**Fallen One…I shall sssssslay you…**_"

_Well, this isn't good,_ Asuka thought glumly. _I just had this suit cleaned…thanks a lot, Toji!_

Flames began to coalesce around her fingertips.

Kyoryuu stepped around the corner, in the midst of his rounds, and froze. Not only was there a giant, somewhat-anthropomorphic lizard standing in the middle of the room, but it seemed as though the second Child was bursting into flames--and she was completely unperturbed.

"That wasn't supposed to happen," he deadpanned under his breath, watching with interest as she suddenly transformed into a flaming demon with a skull for a face. "Thank God I had the foresight to unplug those security cameras."

The lizard lunged at the fiend, teeth gnashing and claws flailing.


End file.
